Gig 044 Thin Lizzy

Thin Lizzy
Oxford New Theatre
19 November 1977

Thin Lizzy had been around for a few years, finally breaking big by soundtracking the scorching summer of 1976 with The Boys are Back in Town. I’d seen them at Reading Festival a few weeks previously and thought they were pretty great, even if on that occasion my enjoyment of their set had been inhibited by having to prioritise avoiding a couple of blokes who wanted to give me a pasting because I looked a bit punk. While I wasn’t massive fan everyone said they were a great live act, my friends were going and so I rolled up at the gig without a ticket, eventually blagging one from a tout at face value by waiting until just before the show was about to start. I was getting better at this sort of thing.

Thin Lizzy certainly weren’t punk but in general the punks liked them, their short, melodic tunes, a rock’n’roll heart worn ostentatiously on their sleeve, and the rebel swagger of Phil Lynott. No one did rebel swagger like Phil. With a lot of rock stars – Billy Idol, Jon Bon Jovi – it’s rather preposterous, everyone’s in on the act and it’s a bit of a laugh, and nothing wrong with that. With Phil however there seemed a bit more to it, having grown up an illegitimate child of mixed ethnicity in conservative Catholic Dublin, where in the 1950s and 60s black people were not so much a minority as a curiosity. I read later that he was by nature quite a shy character, he just had no choice but to stand out and to stand his ground, and consequently had a street credibility that the punk acts couldn’t begin to imagine.

By 1977 he was on top of the world and looked the absolute business, a tall, lean man with leather trews, an afro and a moustache – he was Hendrix, Arthur Lee, Jim Morrison, plus maybe 5% Bruce Forsyth. I was already quite disdainful of corny rock star posturing but Phil and the group just did it so well, consummate musicians and utter pros, an expertly paced set, finely crafted songs about Irish mythology, cowboys and streetfighters, which miraculously didn’t sound daft. Stage lights reflected off the mirrored scratchplate on Phil’s black Fender Precision bass spangling up the hall, the crowd were mad for it, or as mad as you could get in a seated venue in Oxford. Although by now I would have much preferred to see Wire, Buzzcocks, Television, XTC, would any of those groups have put on a better show? Nah, almost certainly not.

And somehow I have the group (minus Brian Robertson)’s autographs. How that happened I have no idea.